QI

BBC One

Fridays 8.30pm

Viewers of the first episode of QI will know that the Q stands for quite, and the I denotes interesting. The previous sentence is an example of pointless trivia, and pointless trivia is the core theme of QI.

 

Stephen Fry, who is seemingly an expert on everything, poses questions - each episode has a theme that the trivia revolves loosely around - and a panel of four comedians/journalists/professional-personality-types fumble around their memory banks for answers.

 

There is a twist though. All of the questions have a fake answer and a real answer. The fake answer is a common belief that has come to be understood by most people as the truth. Say the fake answer and you loose points. Say the real answer, or just anything distinctly interesting, to gain points.

 

QI is currently in its sixth series and this week perennial panelist, Alan Davies was joined by Jeremy Clarkson, Danny Baker and Bill Bailey to ponder the theme of being ecological.

 

They cover everything green from the original colour of Frankenstein’s monster (which was yellow and not green, as most people think), to the amount of gold contained in mobile phones, to the fact that wind turbines cause bats (but not birds) to fall out of the sky.

 

Along the way the panel take the conversation on detours, with Bill Bailey imagining turning his pet tortoise into a cold blooded remote control car and Danny Baker regailing everyone with a tale of how his car was once smothered by cows.

 

Predictably enough in quiz on ecology, Jeremy Clarkson comes last, but he does point out the set design of QI, which involves Fry being flanked by two panelists and one big screen on each side, is waste of energy. As a result Bill and Alan relocate to Jeremy and Danny’s side of the set so one of the screens can be switched off, thereby saving electricity.

 

The show is built on the charm and wit of Stephen Fry. He could be absolutely wrong about everything, but his delivery of knowledge is so confident that you would believe him if he told you that your parents were badgers.

 

Most pub chats revolve around the X-factor or Eastenders or some other pointless bollocks. QI plays like the type of chat you want to have down the pub. Sophisticated, witty and clever. If only Stephen Fry and the other writers would take up residence in my local.

Republic of Telly

RTE Two

10.25pm Mondays

Republic of Telly is a vehicle show for Irish stand up, Neil Delamere. Essentially what happens is Neil rips the piss out of a bunch of RTE’s shows. Sometimes he ventures into the UK’s TV guide, but only when RTE’s two stations fail to provide him with enough ammo. The whole thing is essentially Harry Hill’s TV Burp with an Irish accent and a few non-telly related segements with reporters.

 

The show begins with Neil taking a few clips from the likes of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy out of context and making little quips about them. Then he zeros in on Operation Transformation, Gerry Ryan’s weight loss reality show. Naturally the review begins with Neil pointing out that auld Gerry isn’t exactly Kate Moss, then he lamps into Ryan for suggesting that the show has some how magically begun to fix the national weight problem.

Then Neil is superimposed into the Oscars Ceremony alongside Alec Baldwin. Baldwin’s opening duolog wasn’t funny when Steve Martin did it with him. Delamere didn’t improve the situation.

 

Neil then takes on an appearance by Trevor Sergent on some show and a BBC documentary about hospitals This is a chance to do what he’s really good at; political satire. He fires off a few barbs that would’ve been more at home on the Panel than on a TV review programme. Unfortuneately RTE has handed the job of satire over to Kevin Myers and Mario Rosenstock  – neither is particularly funny but Mario can do a decent impression of Keith from Boyzone.

 

Soon afterwards Mairead Farrell of Ray D’Arcy's radio show is rolled out to add some glamour. The producers sent her down to Croke park for the Ireland v Wales rugby match to vox pop the crowd. This has nothing to do with television but it was funny watching a load of drunk people talking into a microphone. Got a bit odd when some of the vox poppers started groping Mz Farrell. She was clearly uncomfortable.

 

Then Bernard O’Shea is plopped in front of a green screen to give his survival guide to St.Patrick’s day. Again, this has nothing to do with tele, but hey, Bernie’s supressed rage schtick is funny.

 

After that, red carpet correspondent, Jennifer Maguire gets shipped off to the VIP style awards, the very tenuous link here being that there were some people off the tele at it. She tries some Dennis Pennis/Olivia Lee style cheeckiness. Sometimes it works, as with Marty Whelan who riffs with her a bit. Sometimes it doesn’t, as when Grainne Seoige just calls her mean for insulting “talent” of All Ireland Talent Show.

 

Then there’s some bashing of Fregal Quinn’s Retail Therapy where Fergal Quinn revamps some little shop on the northside or something. I’d started to lose interest at this stage as had much of the audience. Everytime the director cut to them they were gently smiling or applauding, but the big laughs stopped around the time Bernard O’Shea finished.

 

Then there was some gnattering with Mairead on subjects that had nothing to do with TV. They might want to revise the name.

 

The show closes with the TV highlight of the week (and possibly the decade), Crystal Swing’s appearance on the Late Late Show. Neil makes a few jokes about their performance but nothing he says could possibly be funnier than the visuals.

 

A hit and miss episode from a hit and miss series. 

The Bubble

BBC2, Fridays @ 10pm

 The Bubble is a comedy-news quiz where three celebrities go into a house with no connection to the outside world for four days. When they emerge they are whisked to a studio where David Mitchell shows them a series of outlandish news stories, some real and some fake, and they have to geuss which ones really happened and which ones are a load of old codswhollop.

 

The BBC kind of shot the producers in the foot by banning its news editorial staff from contributing to the show. Sky and ITN ironically have allowed their journalists to be involved.

 

The idea the creators are pushing here is that the real news has become so ludicrous that you couldn’t make up more ridiculous stories if you tried. And they have a point. Amongst the true stories this week were reports of a town in Germany selling potholes, a man who married a pillow, a chef selling cheese made of breast milk and an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith 

 

Of course the Bubble has a very creative writing staff and they did manage to come up with dwarf bowling (bowling with little people as the pins), David Frost falling asleep on live TV and Banskey being outed as the alter ego of Neil Buchanan from Art Attack.

 

These kinds of shows depend heavily on the ability of their guests to create some laughs. Previous weeks have seen Reginald D Hunter, Ed Byrne and Jon Richardson all bringing the giggles. This week Marcus Brigstocke, Sue Perkins and Julia Hartley-Brewer got bubble wrapped, and that line-up resulted in the least funny show of the series. Unlike in previous weeks, none of them are just funny for a living.

 

Brigstocke is a comedian AND environmentalist, Perkins is comedian AND historian and Hartley-Brewer isn’t even a comedian, she’s a newspaper columnist. The worst part is that Hartley-Brewer got more laughs than the two comics. Add to this the fact that they all middle class, college educated white people and you get an episode that represents the problem with the BBC’s comedy since Sachsgate – everybody is safe. Nobody there has the potential to say anything controversial.

 

Each week there are a few clips of the time the contestants spent in the bubble (it’s a big fancy house in the country). Most weeks there are arguments about scrabble and X-box and fun trivial things. All they did this week was have a civilised discussion about climate change. Somebody throw something!

 

Despite the dullness of the guests, the episode was still pretty funny thanks, in the main, to the stories being mocked. If you’re into news based comedy this should fit snuggly into the gap between Have I Got News For You and Mock The Week in the BBC’s annual schedule.

 

 

Great unanswered questions with Colin Murphy

(I couldn't find any clips from the show on YouTube so I went with a video of Colin Murphy drunkenly chasing some pigeons)

Great unanswered questions with Colin Murphy began life on BBC Radio Ulster before making the leap to the small screen. As the title suggests the show is presented by Belfast’s Colin Murphy. The premise of the show is that Colin tackles pointless, silly, existential questions with the aid of “Doctor of everything” David Booth, who has an uncanny ability to spout facts and figures off the top of his head, and Matthew Collins, who shows bits and bobs he finds on the internet to the audience via a big screen. The trio are also joined by celebrity guest and this week Celebrity Mastermind winner, Lucy Proter filled that role.

 

The first unanswered question to be ununanswered comes from a geordie girl via a vox-pop who asked why hearing running water when you need to pee makes you need to pee even more. Nobody bothers answering the question, they instead talk talk about how attractive she is. This would be sexist if wasn’t for the fact that is was unspeakably good looking and was wearing a funny hat.

 

Next up is an Australian man’s question, via the vox-pop again, who asked why don’t kangeroos and emus walk backwards. Matthew Collins unconvincingly repeats the claim that neither beast can moonwalk before being told to “hold up” by David Booth, who begs to differ. Apparently kangeroos can’t walk backwards but emus can. Booth then stars explaining why Skippy can’t walk backwards until Murphy and Porter go off on a tangent about kangeroos at a party with an awkward situation. The kangeroo party gets interupted by Matthew displaying a video of two roos having a fight.

 

This leads into an annecdote from Murphy who talks aout how kangeroos like to lounge around in quite a human fashion in the parks of Melbourne, then somehow  the subject of kaneroos’ penises is raised and Davey has a whopper of fact to drop on this subject too; apperntly kangeroos have forked penises. This leads to more questions that Booth has no answer for. Matthew digs him out of his void of knowledge by declaring “kualas have it too”.

 

After a smidgen more schoolboy humour the conversation returns to the vox-pop where somebody asks does eating loads of oranges turn your skin orange. Booth goes through the science of the theory and concludes that it will work but you would need to eat a lot of oranges. Carrots work better though, as proved by Matthew who whips up a website that shows a girl who went on a 4-week carrot diet with visible results. This inevitably leads to the revelation that ginger people have a mutant skin pigment.

 

The final ponderance comes directly from the brain of Colin Murphy; why is that boys and old men can’t dance but young men can. David gives a scientific answer involving testosterone levels and body symetery. Matthew throws up a picture of an old man having a whale of a time on a dancefloor and a 5-year old tearing it up on Dance Dance Revelation.

 

Essentially the dynamic is that of a chat in the pub with your brainy mate (Booth) with the added dynamic of a big screen showing funny videos from youtube. It isn’t the most uproariously funny show on the tele (although a stronger a guest could put it closer), but at no point is it less than interesting. Well worth your time.